Spc. Philip Schiller had watched more than half of his Stryker brigade leave Joint Base Lewis-McChord for Afghanistan in December. His infantry battalion stayed behind, continuing to train and awaiting further orders.
Stretching a yellow extension cord to its limit, Lynn Phillips carried a small CD player out of Crystal Mountain’s summit-top ski demo shop Friday and set it in the snow at 6,872 feet above sea level.
Despite enormous stress on military families from repeated wartime deployments and long periods living apart, service marriages are showing a level of resilience that social scientists can’t yet explain.
Ramon Kaipat, a Marine Corps lance corporal from Tacoma, died Wednesday during combat operations in the Helmand province of Afghanistan.
The soldiers didn’t think much of the first blast. It came from 45 pounds of homemade explosives buried in a road about three miles from the NATO base here. That’s enough to shake up a soldier and blow out the tires on his heavily armored vehicle.
When U.S. forces depart this rural district, home to the tribe of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, they’ll leave behind small monuments to their shifting strategies in 11 years of fighting here.
A Marine from Tacoma has died in Afghanistan, according to the Department of Defense.
NAJIBAN, Afghanistan – One month after Joint Base Lewis-McChord Staff Sgt. Robert Bales allegedly went on a killing spree in southern Afghanistan, the saying that “the first casualty of war is truth” holds true in the deaths of eight adults and nine children in the villages of Najiban and Alkozai.
Five Joint Base Lewis-McChord soldiers are reportedly under investigation for smuggling a rocket launcher off base last fall, but an Army spokesman said the weapon didn’t belong to the base.
Staff Sgt. Robert Bales will be examined this spring by an Army panel of doctors to determine whether he is mentally fit to stand trial on charges of murdering 17 Afghan villagers, according to an Army official briefed on the case.
Staff Sgt. Robert Bales will be examined in spring by an Army panel of doctors to determine whether he is mentally fit to stand trial on charges of murdering 17 Afghan villagers, according to an Army official briefed on the case.
A Tacoma-based division of international conglomerate Universal Sodexo has been awarded a one-year contract extension worth up to $36 million by the Philadelphia-based U.S. Defense Logistics Agency.
The troops from Joint Base Lewis-McChord rolled out in full force, their armored vehicles protecting a convoy of supplies. . . . At the front of the line: three slight Afghan men riding motorcycles with their army’s flag flying from their tails. The men are human mine detectors in the style of the Afghan National Army.
Joint Base Lewis-McChord will conduct late-night firings from 12:30 a.m. Tuesday through 11:59 p.m. Saturday.
Edward Phillips traveled the world during an Army career of more than 20 years. He’s been sent to Germany, where he met his wife, Rhonda, and he served in Bosnia, Korea and Iraq prior to his retirement last April.
There are lawyers who think it’s wrong to keep score. They say it can warp motives, can discourage taking tough cases and is, well, unseemly.
You’ll be happy to know your soldiers got a good meal with pie, turkey and ham at Forward Operating Base Sweeney. There wasn’t much else for the holiday here because most of the American soldiers were coming home from a two-day mission to resupply an Afghan base north of here.
The killings in Afghanistan attributed to Staff Sgt. Robert Bales have intensified public focus on post-traumatic stress disorder, already a hot political topic in the South Sound because of concerns about the reliability of diagnoses of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans at Madigan Army Medical Center.
Ruben Greer was an Army medic in Vietnam, the non-commissioned officer in charge of a “dust-off” medical evacuation unit in the Mekong Delta in 1966 and 1967.
Older retirees such as Air Force Master Sgt. Floyd Sears, 81, stand shoulder to shoulder with younger generations of retirees in opposing any of the higher fees being proposed for Tricare benefits.
Staff Sgt. Andrew Elo suited up twice in a week’s time with a bag of tools and a small robot to take apart homemade enemy bombs in the dead of night outside the U.S. forward base here.
Walking in the dark toward the scene of an Apache helicopter attack against a team of insurgents, Sgt. Dison Ittu looked down and saw something that might help the days go by a little faster on his yearlong Stryker deployment to Afghanistan.
Darren Spencer, a 39-year-old Army veteran from Tacoma, found himself homeless after losing his $15.45-an-hour job as a furniture mover a year ago. He takes pills for his depression and has trouble hearing. He has no car, and his unemployment benefits ran out in December.
A senior Pentagon official told U.S. Sen. Patty Murray at a hearing in Tacoma on Wednesday that cost isn’t a consideration for the care of U.S. service members.
The chief Afghan investigator in last month’s slayings of 17 civilians says there’s strong evidence that only one killer was involved, a view that puts him at odds with Afghanistan’s president, Hamid Karzai.
The insurgents didn’t have a chance. Helicopter surveillance spotted them moving to a weapons cache and preparing to bury a powerful homemade bomb.
U.S. Sen. Patty Murray will hold a hearing Wednesday (April 4) in Tacoma to explore how to improve mental health care, job opportunities and community outreach for returning veterans.
Walking in the dark toward the scene of an Apache helicopter attack against a team of insurgents, Sgt. Dison Ittu looked down and saw something that might help the days go by a little faster on his yearlong deployment to Afghanistan.
Staff Sgt. Robert Bales showed risk factors for alcohol abuse, including violent behavior while drunk, but it’s unclear whether the Army knew about this behavior or whether he ever was referred to treatment.
Last year, Taliban threats and buried roadside bombs kept local farmers from selling their fruits at marketplaces outside the small community of Mizan, Afghanistan. Similar intimidation kept residents from sending their children to school or attending their own bazaar.
A Joint Base Lewis-McChord combat brigade ended its preparations Friday for a nine-month tour to Afghanistan, professing its readiness to return to a country roiled by strained U.S.-Afghan relations and outbursts of violence by soldiers on both sides.
Tricare beneficiaries across 21 western states won’t know for another three months whether TriWest Healthcare Alliance will continue to administer their health care benefit beyond March of next year.
There’s nothing like time at home between brutal combat deployments to refresh soldiers, get them fit for the next tour of duty and maybe help them save a relationship.
The Joint Base Lewis-McChord soldier accused of killing 17 Afghan villagers this month has reported suffering from severe nightmares, flashbacks of war scenes and persistent headaches after his multiple combat tours, his attorney said Wednesday.
Pregnant with her first child, and with her husband in Iraq, Karilyn Bales took advantage of what seemed like a sure thing — tapping into their home equity to help stabilize the family’s finances.
Fearing the Army might be mishandling the matter, Washington state Sen. Patty Murray said Wednesday that she has begun an investigation into whether military hospitals across the country are denying treatment to service members with post-traumatic stress disorder because of cost considerations.
The family of the Joint Base Lewis-McChord soldier charged in a bloody rampage in southern Afghanistan is seeking donations to pay legal costs that some experts expect will run well into the six figures.
U.S. investigators believe the U.S. soldier accused of killing 17 Afghan civilians split the slaughter into two episodes, returning to his base after the first attack and later slipping away to kill again, two American officials said Saturday.
The U.S. military on Friday charged Staff Sgt. Robert Bales with 17 counts of premeditated murder, and it appeared likely his court-martial would be held at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.
The Army announced Wednesday that it has notified 15 soldiers of their behavioral health diagnoses amid an investigation into whether Madigan Army Medical Center’s forensic psychiatry unit wrongly changed post-traumatic stress disorder diagnoses.
KANDAHAR – Residents of an Afghan village near where an American soldier is alleged to have killed 16 civilians are convinced that the slayings were in retaliation for a roadside bomb attack on U.S. forces in the same area a few days earlier.
A Tacoma police report released Tuesday shows a 2002 assault charge against Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales occurred at a local casino while he was drunk.
Army Maj. Gen. Robert Brown would be the first Stryker infantry brigade commander to come back as overall commander at Lewis-McChord.
WASHINGTON – Leaders of the House Armed Services Committee differed Tuesday on how quickly to remove U.S. troops from Afghanistan, while the top commander of forces there said the U.S. campaign remains “on track” despite a spate of recent setbacks.
The lawyer for the Joint Base Lewis-McChord soldier accused of slaughtering 16 Afghan civilians in a shooting rampage met his client for the first time Monday and said Staff Sgt. Robert Bales has a sketchy memory of that night.
CASUALTIES OF WAR
Search our database for service members from Washington or who were assigned from military installations around the state who have died in Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere in U.S. military operations since Sept. 11, 2001.
MCCLATCHY BAGHDAD BUREAU
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